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Anti-poverty activists walking from Victoria to Vancouver

VANCOUVER—Starting in Victoria and passing through Elk Lake and Saanich, a group of anti-poverty activists have walked for the past six day, hoping to spark dialogue around poverty and homelessness.

Sleeping in tents and on church pews along the way, the group will take the ferry to the mainland on Wednesday, and pick up the march again in Surrey, all the way to Vancouver in what they are calling The Poor Person’s Walk, named after The Poor People’s March on Washington which was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

A group of anti-homelessness activists will be walking (and taking the ferry) from Victoria to Vancouver, meeting with communities along the way in Surrey and Burnaby, to bring attention to the issue of poverty and homelessness. (Facebook/The Poor Person's Walk)

“We are marching to repeal laws currently being used to criminalize poor people, and to build relationships and talk to people in communities about the issues affecting poor people,” said Kym Hines, lead organizer of the march.

“We want to demand a little more income for everyone and some control of the housing market.”

The small group of marchers will be walking from Surrey where they will be joined by others, and from where they will be holding a community barbecue, and then on to Burnaby where they will meet with activists protesting displacement in the Metrotown area. Their final destination is 58 Hastings St. in Vancouver, to mark two years since Mayor Gregor Robertson had promised that housing at that location would be made available at welfare rates.

The march was inspired by the Poor People's March led by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 60s, and highlights the continued need for affordable housing and welfare in the province that has persisted for decades. (FACEBOOK/THE POOR PERSON'S WALK)

Hines said that the march is particularly important now, with homeless people experiencing harassment on the street and in public spaces.

“In the community we are going through unprecedented social stigma in public spaces,” he said. “The only place we can invite people to is the street. We need public space and we have to fight for it.”

Jenn Allan, another one of the marchers who travelled from Vancouver to start the march in Victoria, said that while camping for the past several days, the group of marchers have experienced harassment and threats, especially when camped out at the tent city in Victoria.

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“We have walked through and stayed at different places, and the last three days camped and slept in tents. It’s been interesting how people responded, especially in the tent city. People would drive by and yell out horrible things at the campers,” she said.

“We are seeing what it’s like to live as homeless people ... it’s definitely a lot of judgmental people, those people who don’t care for the poor.”

She said that the lack of safety for homeless people is connected to the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in B.C., many of whom were in impoverished and vulnerable situations.

“There’s a connection between missing and murdered women and the lack of safe housing. Only now people are looking at this crisis, but we’ve always known why.”

A recent study found that the lack of understanding of the homeless in Victoria created a sense of public distrust and hatred toward them. Dr. Bernie Pauly, a professor in the University of Victoria’s School of Nursing, analyzed 450 media articles during the time there was a tent city in Victoria, and examined how homeless and poverty were represented.

“What we found was there was a lot of misrepresentations and people who were homeless were often targeted and discriminated against with assumptions that whatever crime happened would be blamed on them,” said Pauly. “I think it fuelled misunderstandings and fuelled actual hate.”

She also said that in the course of the study, she found that homeless people were the most knowledgeable about their own situations.

Hines hopes the walk will ignite dialogue among those who have experienced homelessness and raise awareness of the problem.

Cherise Seucharan is a Vancouver-based reporter covering health and safety/youth. Follow her on Twitter: @CSeucharan

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